Chapter 8

From that hour Gerard was in love with Margaret, and now began a pretty trouble. For at Rotterdam, thanks to a letter from Margaret Van Eyck, Gerard won the favour of the Princess Marie, who, hearing that he was to be a priest, promised him a benefice. And yet no sooner was Gerard returned home to Tergon than he must needs go seeking Margaret, who lived alone with her father, old Peter Brandt, at Sevenbergen. Ghysbrecht's one fear was that if Gerard married Margaret the youth would sooner or later get to hear about certain documents in the burgomaster's possession, documents which established Brandt's right to lands held by the burgomaster, and which old Peter had long forgotten.

So Ghysbrecht went to Eli and Catherine and showed them a picture Gerard had made of Margaret Brandt, and said that if Eli ordered it his son should be locked up until he came to his senses. Henceforth there was no longer any peace in the little house at Tergon, and at last Eli declared before the whole family that he had ordered the burgomaster to imprison his son Gerard in the Stadthouse rather than let him marry Margaret. Gerard turned pale at this, and his father went on to say, "and a priest you shall be before this year is out, willy-nilly."

"Is it so?" cried Gerard. "Then hear me all. By God and St. Bavon, I swear I will never be a priest while Margaret lives. Since force is to decide it, and not love and duty, try force, father. And the day I see the burgomaster come for me I leave Tergon for ever, and Holland too, and my father's house, where it seems I am valued only for what is to be got out of me."

And he flung out of the room white with anger and desperation.

"There!" cried Catherine. "That comes of driving young folk too hard. Now, heaven forbid he should ever leave us, married or single."

Gerard went to his good friend Margaret Van Eyck, who advised him to go to Italy, where painters were honoured like princes, and to take the girl he loved with him. Ten golden angels she gave him besides to take him to Rome.

Gerard decided to marry Margaret Brandt at once, and a day or two later they stood before the altar of Sevenbergen Church. But the ceremony was never concluded, although Gerard got a certificate from the priest, for Ghysbrecht getting wind of what was afoot, sent his servants, who stopped the marriage, and carried Gerard off to the burgomaster's prison. In the room where he was confined were very various documents, which the prisoner got hold of.

Gerard escaped from the prison, and vowing he had done with Tergon, bade farewell to Margaret, and set off for Italy. Once across the frontier in Germany he was safe from Ghysbrecht's malice. He also had in his keeping the piece of parchment which gave certain lands to Peter Brandt, and which Ghysbrecht had hitherto held.

_II.--To Rome_

It is likely Gerard would never have reached Rome but for his faithful comrade Denys, a soldier making his way home to Burgundy, whom he met early on the road. Gerard, at first, was for going on alone, but his companion would not be refused.

"You will find me a dull companion, for my heart is very heavy," said Gerard, yielding.

"I'll cheer you, mon gars."

"I think you would," said Gerard sweetly; "and sore need have I of a kindly voice in mine ear this day."

"Oh, no soul is sad alongside me. I lift up their poor little hearts with my consigne; 'Courage, tout le monde, le diable est mort.' Ha! Ha!"

"So be it, then," said Gerard. "We will go together as far as Rhine, and God go with us both!"

"Amen!" said Denys, and lifted up his cap.

The pair trudged manfully on, and Denys enlivened the weary way. He chattered about battles and sieges, and things which were new to Gerard; and he was one of those who _make_ little incidents wherever they go. He passed nobody without addressing him. "They don't understand it, but it wakes them up," said he. But, whenever they fell in with a monk or priest, he pulled a long face and sought the reverend father's blessing, and fearlessly poured out on him floods of German words in such order as not to produce a single German sentence. He doffed his cap to every woman, high or low, he caught sight of, and complimented her in his native tongue, well adapted to such matters; and at each carrion crow or magpie down came his crossbow, and he would go a furlong off the road to circumvent it; and indeed he did shoot one old crow with laudable neatness, and carried it to the nearest hen-roost, and there slipped in and sat it upon a nest. "The good-wife will say, 'Alack, here is Beelzebub a hatching of my eggs.'"

But the time came for parting and Denys, with a letter from Gerard to Margaret Brandt, reached Tergon, and found Eli and Catherine and gave them news of their son. "Many a weary league we trode together," said Denys. "Never were truer comrades; never will be while earth shall last. First I left my route a bit to be with him, then he his to be with me. We talked of Sevenbergen and Tergon a thousand times, and of all in this house. We had our troubles on the road, but battling them together made them light. I saved his life from a bear, he mine in the Rhine; for he swims like a duck, and I like a hod o' bricks; and we saved one another's lives at an inn in Burgundy, where we two held a room for a good hour against seven cut-throats, and crippled one and slew two; and your son met the stoutest champion I ever countered, and spitted him like a sucking-pig, else I had not been here. And at our sad parting, soldier though I be, these eyes did rain salt, scalding tears, and so did his, poor soul. His last word to me was: 'Go, comfort Margaret!' So here I be. Mine to him was: 'Think no more of Rome. Make for Rhine, and down stream home.'"

Margaret Brandt had removed to Rotterdam, and there was no love lost between her and Catherine; but Gerard's letter drew them to a reconciliation, and from that day Catherine treated Margaret as her own daughter, and made much of Gerard's child when it was born. Eli and his son Richart, now a wealthy merchant, decided that Gerard must be bidden return home on the instant, for they longed to see him, and since he was married to Margaret, it was useless for any further strife on the matter.

But Ghysbrecht, the burgomaster, knew by this time that Gerard had obtained the parchment relating to Peter Brandt's lands, and was anxious that Gerard should not return. Cornelis and Sybrandt were also against their brother, and willing to aid the burgomaster in any diabolical adventure. So a letter was concocted and Margaret Van Eyck's signature forged to it, and in this letter it was said that Margaret Brandt was dead.

In the meantime, Gerard had reached Rome. The ship he sailed in was wrecked off the coast between Naples and Rome, and here Gerard was nearly drowned. He and a Dominican friar clung to a mast when the ship had struck.

It was a terrible situation; one moment they saw nothing, and seemed down in a mere basin of watery hills; the next they caught glimpses of the shore speckled bright with people, who kept throwing up their arms to encourage them.

When they had tumbled along thus a long time, suddenly the friar said quietly: "I touched the ground."

"Impossible, father," said Gerard. "We are more than a hundred yards from shore. Prythee, leave not our faithful mast."

"My son," said the friar, "you speak prudently. But know that I have business of Holy Church on hand, and may not waste time floating, when I can walk in her service. There, I felt it with my toes again! Thy stature is less than mine; keep to the mast; I walk." He left the mast accordingly, and extending his powerful arms, rushed through the water. Gerard soon followed him. At each overpowering wave the monk stood like a tower, and, closing his mouth, threw his head back to encounter it, then emerged and ploughed lustily on. At last they came close to the shore, and then the natives sent stout fishermen into the sea, holding by long spears, and so dragged them ashore.

The friar shook himself, bestowed a short paternal benediction on the natives, and went on to Rome, without pausing.

Gerard grasped every hand upon the beach. They brought him to an enormous fire, left him to dry himself, and fetched clothes for him to wear.

Next day, towards afternoon, Gerard--twice as old as last year, thrice as learned in human ways, a boy no more, but a man who had shed blood in self-defence, and grazed the grave by land and sea--reached the Eternal City.

_III.--The Cloister_

Gerard stayed in Rome, worked hard, and got money for his illuminations. He put by money of all he earned, and Margaret seemed nearer and nearer. Then came the day when the forged letter reached him. "Know that Margaret Brandt died in these arms on Thursday night last. The last words on her lips was 'Gerard!' She said: 'Tell him I prayed for him at my last hour, and bid him pray for me.'" The letter was signed with Margaret Van Eyck's signature, sure enough.

Gerard staggered against the window sill and groaned when he read this. His senses failed him; he ran furiously about the streets for hours. Despair followed.

On the second day he was raving with fever on the brain, and on his recovery from the fever a dark cloud fell on Gerard's noble mind.

His friend Fra Jerome, the same Dominican friar who had escaped from the wreck with him, exhorted him to turn and consecrate his gifts to the Church.

"Malediction on the Church!" cried Gerard. "But for the Church I should not lie broken here, and she lie cold in Holland." Fra Jerome left him at this.

Gerard's pure and unrivalled love for Margaret had been his polar star. It was quenched, and he drifted on the gloomy sea of no hope. He rushed fiercely into pleasure, and in those days, more than now, pleasure was vice. The large sums he had put by for Margaret gave him ample means for debauchery, and he sought for a moment's oblivion in the excitements of the hour. "Ghysbrecht lives; Margaret dies!" he would try out. "Curse life, curse death, and whosoever made them what they are!"

His heart deteriorated along with his morals, and he no longer had patience for his art, as the habits of pleasure grew on him.

Then life itself became intolerable to Gerard, and one night, in resolute despair, he flung himself into the river. But he was not allowed to drown, and was carried, all unconscious, to the Dominican convent. Gerard awoke to find Father Jerome by his bedside.

"Good Father Jerome, how came I hither?" he inquired.

"By the hand of Heaven! You flung away God's gift. He bestowed it on you again. Think of it! Hast tried the world and found its gall. Now try the Church! The Church is peace. Pax vobiscum!"

Gerard learnt that the man who had saved him from drowning was a professional assassin.

Saved from death by an assassin!

Was not this the finger of Heaven--of that Heaven he had insulted, cursed, and defied?

He shuddered at his blasphemies. He tried to pray, but found he could only utter prayers, and could not pray.

"I am doomed eternally!" he cried. "Doomed, doomed!" Then rose the voices of the choir chanting a full service. Among them was one that seemed to hover above the others--a sweet boy's voice, full, pure, angelic.

He closed his eyes and listened. The days of his own boyhood flowed back upon him.

"Ay," he sighed, "the Church is peace of mind. Till I left her bosom I ne'er knew sorrow, nor sin."

And the poor torn, worn creature wept; and soon was at the knees of a kind old friar, confessing his every sin with sighs and groans of penitence.

And, lo! Gerard could pray now, and he prayed with all his heart.

He turned with terror and aversion from the world, and begged passionately to remain in the convent. To him, convent nurtured, it was like a bird returning wounded, wearied, to its gentle nest.

He passed his novitiate in prayer and mortification and pious reading and meditation.

And Gerard, carried from the Tiber into that convent a suicide, now passed for a young saint within its walls.

Upon a shorter probation than usual, he was admitted to priests' orders, and soon after took the monastic vows, and became a friar of St. Dominic.

Dying to the world, the monk parted with the very name by which he had lived in it, and so broke the last link of association with earthly feelings. Here Gerard ended, and Brother Clement began.

The zeal and accomplishments of Clement, especially his rare mastery of language, soon transpired, and he was destined to travel and preach in England, corresponding with the Roman centre.

It was rather more than twelve months later when Clement and Jerome set out for England. They reached Rotterdam, and here Jerome, impatient because his companion lingered on the way, took ship alone, and advised Clement to stop awhile and preach to his own countrymen.

Clement was shocked and mortified at this contemptuous desertion. He promised to sleep at the convent and preach whenever the prior should appoint, and then withdrew abruptly. Shipwrecked with Jerome, and saved on the same fragment of the wreck; his pupil, and for four hundred miles his fellow traveller in Christ; and to be shaken off like dirt, the first opportunity. "Why, worldly hearts are no colder nor less trusty than this," said he. "The only one that ever really loved me lies in a grave hard by at Sevenbergen, and I will go and pray over it."

_IV.--Cloister and Hearth_

Friar Clement, preaching in Rotterdam, saw Margaret in the church and recognised her. Within a day or two he learnt from the sexton, who had been in the burgomaster's service, the story of the trick that had been played upon him by his brothers, in league with Ghysbrecht.

That same night a Dominican friar, livid with rage, burst into the room when Eli and Catherine were collected with their family round the table at supper.

Standing in front of Cornelius and Sybrandt he cursed them by name, soul and body, in this world and the next. Then he tore a letter out of his bosom, and flung it down before his father.

"Read that, thou hard old man, that didst imprison thy son, read, and see what monsters thou has brought into the world! The memory of my wrongs, and hers dwell with you all for ever! I will meet you again at the judgement day; on earth ye will never see me more!"

And in a moment, as he had come, so he was gone, leaving them stiff and cold, and white as statues, round the smoking board.

Eli drove Cornelis and Sybrandt out of doors at the point of a sword when he understood their infamy, and heavy silence reigned in his house that night.

And where was Clement?

Lying at full length upon the floor of the convent church, with his lips upon the lowest step of the altar, in an indescribable state of terror, misery, penitence, and self-abasement; through all of which struggled gleams of joy that Margaret was alive.

Then he suddenly remembered that he had committed another sin besides intemperate rage. He had neglected a dying man. He rose instantly, and set out to repair the omission.

The house he was called to was none other than the Stadthouse, and the dying man was his old enemy Ghysbrecht, the burgomaster.

Clement trembled a little as he entered, and said in a low voice "Pax vobiscum." Ghysbrecht did not recognise Gerard in the Dominican friar, and promised in his sickness to make full restitution to Margaret Brandt for the withholding of her property from her.

As soon as he was quite sure Margaret had her own, and was a rich woman, Friar Clement disappeared.

The hermit of Gouda had recently died, and Clement found his cell amidst the rocks, and appropriated it. The news that he had been made vicar of Gouda never reached his ears to disturb him.

It was Margaret who discovered Clement's hiding-place and sought him out, and begged him to leave the dismal hole he inhabited, and come to the vacant vicarage.

"My beloved," said he, with a strange mixture of tenderness and dogged resolution, "I bless thee for giving me one more sight of thy sweet face, and may God forgive thee, and bless thee, for destroying in a minute the holy place it hath taken six months of solitude to build. I am a priest, a monk, and though my heart break I must be firm. My poor Margaret, I seem cruel; yet I am kind; 'tis best we part; ay, this moment."

But Margaret went away, and, determined to drive Clement from his hermitage, returned again with their child, which she left in the cell in its owner's absence. Now, Clement was fond of children, and, thinking the infant had been deserted by some unfortunate mother, he at once set to work to comfort it.

"Now bless thee, bless thee sweet innocent! I would not change thee for e'en a cherub in heaven," said Clement. Soon the child was nestling in the hermit's arms.

"I ikes oo," said the little boy. "Ot is oo? Is oo a man?"

"Ay, little heart, and a great sinner to boot"

"I ikes great tingers. Ting one a tory."

Clement chanted a child's story in a sort of recitative. The boy listened with rapture, and presently succumbed to sleep.

Clement began to rock his new treasure in his arms, and to crone over him a little lullaby well known in Tergon, with which his own mother had often set him off.

He sighed deeply, and could not help thinking what might have been but for a piece of paper with a lie in it.

The next moment the moonlight burst into his cell, and with it, and in it, Margaret Brandt was down at his knee with a timorous hand upon his shoulder.

"Gerald, you do not reject us. You cannot."

The hermit stared from the child to her in throbbing amazement.

"Us?" he gasped at last.

Margaret was surprised in her turn.

"What!" she cried. "Doth not a father know his own child? Fie, Gerard, to pretend! 'Tis thine own flesh and blood thou holdest to thine heart."

Long they sat and talked that night, and the end of it was Clement promised to leave his cave for the manse at Gouda. But once the new vicar was installed Margaret kept away from the parsonage. She left little Gerard there to complete the conquest her maternal heart ascribed to him, and contented herself with stolen meetings with her child.

Then the new vicar of Gouda, his beard close shaved, and in a grey frock and large felt hat, came to bring her to the vicarage.

"My sweet Margaret!" he cried. "Why is this? Why hold you aloof from your own good deed? We have been waiting and waiting for you every day, and no Margaret."

And Margaret went to the manse, and found Catherine, Clement's mother, there; and next day being Sunday the two women heard the Vicar of Gouda preach in his own church. It was crammed with persons, who came curious, but remained. Never was Clement's gift as a preacher displayed more powerfully. In a single sermon, which lasted two hours, and seemed to last but twenty minutes, he declared the whole scripture.

The two women in a corner sat entranced, with streaming eyes.

As soon as they were by themselves, Margaret threw her arms round Catherine's neck and kissed her.

"Mother, mother, I am not quite a happy woman, but oh! I am a proud one."

And she vowed on her knees never by word or deed to let her love come between this young saint and heaven.

The child, who lived to become the great Erasmus, was already winning a famous name at school, when Margaret was stricken with the plague and died. A fortnight later and Clement left his vicarage and entered the Dominican convent to end life as he began it. A few days later and he, too, was dead, and the convent counted him a saint.

* * * * *

SAMUEL RICHARDSON

Pamela

Samuel Richardson, the son of a joiner, was born at some place not identified in Derbyshire, England, 1689. After serving an apprenticeship to a stationer, he entered a printing office as compositor and corrector of the press. In 1719 Richardson, whose career throughout was that of the industrious apprentice, took up his freedom, and began business as printer and stationer in Salisbury Court, London. Success attended his venture; he soon published a newspaper, and also obtained the printing of the journals of the House of Commons. "Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded," was written as the result of a suggestion by two booksellers that Richardson should compose a volume of familiar letters for illiterate country folk. It was published towards the end of 1740, and its vogue, in an age particularly coarse and robust, was extraordinary. Of the many who ridiculed his performance the most noteworthy was Fielding, who produced what Richardson and his friends regarded as the "lewd and ungenerous engraftment of 'Joseph Andrews.'" The story has many faults, but the portrayal of Pamela herself is accomplished with the success of a master hand. Richardson died July 4, 1761.

_I.--Pamela to her Parents_

MY DEAR FATHER AND MOTHER,--I have great trouble, and some comfort, to acquaint you with. The trouble is that my good lady died of the illness I mention'd to you, and left us all griev'd for the loss of her; for she was a dear good lady, and kind to all us her servants. Much I fear'd, that as I was taken by her ladyship to wait upon her person, I should be quite destitute again, and forc'd to return to you and my poor mother, who have enough to do to maintain yourselves; and, as my lady's goodness had put me to write and cast accounts, and made me a little expert at my needle, and otherwise qualify'd above my degree, it was not every family that could have found a place that your poor Pamela was fit for. But God, whose graciousness to us we have so often experienc'd, put it into my good lady's heart, on her death-bed, just an hour before she expir'd, to recommend to my young master all her servants, one by one; and when it came to my turn to be recommended (for I was sobbing and crying at her pillow) she could only say, "My dear son!" and so broke off a little; and then recovering--"remember my poor Pamela!" and those were some of her last words! O, how my eyes overflow! Don't wonder to see the paper so blotted!

Well, but God's will must be done, and so comes the comfort, that I shall not be obliged to return back to be a burden to my dear parents! For my master said, "I will take care of you all, my good maidens; and for you, Pamela (and took me by the hand before them all), for my dear mother's sake I will be a friend to you, and you shall take care of my linen." God bless him! and pray with me, my dear father and mother, for a blessing upon him, for he has given mourning and a year's wages to all my lady's servants; and I, having no wages as yet, my lady having said she would do for me as I deserv'd, ordered the housekeeper to give me mourning with the rest, and gave me with his own hand four guineas and some silver, which were in my lady's pocket when she died; and said if I was a good girl, and faithful and diligent, he would be a friend to me, for his mother's sake. And so I send you these four guineas for your comfort. I send them by John, our footman, who goes your way; but he does not know what he carries; because I seal them up in one of the little pill-boxes which my lady had, wrapp'd close in paper, that they may not chink, and be sure don't open it before him.

Pray for your Pamela; who will ever be--

Your dutiful Daughter.